Freeplay Sherpa hand-cranked light in 2012

I did a search for discussion of Freeplay lights and the most recent thread I found was from 2011.

Having just bought a current edition of the Freeplay Sherpa light I thought I'd make one or two observations for anyone who is interested.

The light easily disassembles by undoing a few screws holding the case together, and inside the construction is rather straightforward and "low tech", making it probable you could repair it if needed.

Given some comments I have read about battery replacement, of most interest to me was finding a standard NiMH battery pack inside of a kind similar to the ones used in cordless phones. It is a 1/3A (?) 3 cell 600 mAh pack with a molex type connector. The battery is surprisingly small, being dwarfed by the size of the light, but I suppose it is sufficient for the job. I am confident the battery could be replaced if required, although I am slightly disappointed not to find conventional AAA or AA cells inside.

I don't know what the LED emitter is, but it gives a decent light, certainly enough for emergencies. At a guess, maybe something like 20 lumens on high and 5 lumens on low. Given such a small battery and long run time it's not going to light up the world.

Mechanically it seems sound. I think it might not survive a big drop, so the claims about it being extremely durable are possibly misplaced, but it looks tough enough for normal use.

The crank mechanism has a smooth feel to it and seems to be reasonably efficient.

If you don't like cranking, you can charge it using a standard USB cable. It apparently takes four hours to fully charge the battery and then it will give many hours of light.

Sadly it doesn't have intelligent charge control, just a reverse protection diode and a few current limiting resistors between the 5 V USB supply and the 3.6 V battery pack. So you must not leave it on charge indefinitely or it will overcharge the battery. Bad marks for that. Should do better.

So anyway, just a few thoughts from a brief examination. Not an extensive use test by any means. However, if you are interested in the idea of an emergency light that doesn't need batteries, this light may sit well alongside other rechargeable lights.

I like how in the manual it says to not charge for more than 5 hours. The first thing that popped into my mind was, "What fool is going to be cranking on this thing for 5 hours straight??" I know it has the USB charge option, but still. I thought it was kind of funny.

Thanks for the review. I might just get one and leave it in the truck. I've seen some of the others and they look like crap with it having translucent plastic and all. This one actually looks decent. Who's the first to swap out for hi-cri leds?

Yeah, I was thinking about that light recently and was wondering if anything has been changed. If possible, could you get a picture of the LED they use?

Something like the Cree ML-B could work well in something like that, low power emitter with decent efficiency.

I'll try to take a few pictures and post them later.

A few teardown pictures after disassembly.

Danke!

Yeah, it does look like a generic mid power LED. The gears do look well fitted and seem more durable then the cheapie crank lights.

I still have one of these Sherpa Xray LED lights, some 10+ years old now. Still works fine on original cells. The crank handle is a black anodized solid steel and the crank mechanism does a good job of charging up cells, and the 6V charging works well too.

Very cool blue 5mm LED's... an odd array of 7, with 2 brightness modes. Would be fun to change out a few of those with some Nichia.








A shame the company went out of business. If they were still around, I imagine they'd have evolved the design quite a bit.